IWasBored, I know you usually find a way to pick at my posts and try to belittle me, but I really don't understand how you could possibly have made a fight out of this of all things! History!

First, I meant no offense at all with the explainations of Duma and other things, and the posts were not directed at just you (note I didn't even reply your post) I was just adding notes to anyone, ANYONE who might be interested. I know some very smart people who have never heard of the Duma or the Provisional Gov't just because they never learned it in school and were never interested but might be now. It's NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE. I was actually enjoying talking about history because it's something I like to do and I hoped to find someone who wanted to talk about it (but not fight )

Some of the sources:

Lost Splendor by Prince Felix Youssoupoff (Yussopov)
The Flight of The Romanovs by John C. Perry and Constantine Pleshakov
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie
The Last Tsar by Eduard Radzinsky (sp)
The Man Who Murdered Rasputin by Greg King

If you are serious I will PM you the page numbers when I dig them out. I'm sure I could quote other books too. But let's not fight over this.

Yes and there was one British doctor--the name escapes me, William something--that started studying PTSS. Both Graves and Sassoon went to him. I don't know if he ever succeeded in naming or really understanding it, but he was one of the few who made an effort.

Yeah. I can't remember the name of the guy who got busted but I'll never forget Graves' testimony. It's powerful stuff.

I don't want to keep the debate going since it seems to be getting so personal, but the general consensus has always been that the Tsar's family were innocent victims of the Revolution.

If they had wanted to shoot the Tsar, that's one thing. He was a dedicated autocrat and handled everything very badly. But his family could have been exiled abroad--the Provisional Government did look into exiling him, but King George was reluctant. Yes, he *was* a political prisoner and there could be reprisals. They were totally at a loss as to what to do with him and just kept him under house arrest.

If they weren't innocent, the Bolsheviks would not have hesitated about announcing their executions. Instead, they released several different stories. And the desperate hope that Anastasia had survived just shows how disgusted and disbelieving the populace was over the idea of the entire family being shot--without so much as a trial. Many felt the Tsar at least deserved that much. The Bolsheviks were "for the people" but they left the people completely out of the decision. The people may have chosen very differently than the Bolsheviks did, despite their past feelings towards Alexandria.

Even if you want to look at the whole family as political prisoners and subject to punishment for being autocrats, they deserved a trial. The execution wasn't even cleanly done and they hid the bodies. They clearly didn't feel good about what they had done.

After their bodies were exhumed, the Russians made them into saints--they've come to symbolize all those lost as a result of the Revolution and the Communist regime.

Please, please, don't see me as taking sides or trying to fight with anyone! I study history at school and I'm certainly not an expert. I am geekily compelled to write essays is all.

You're right, Avsgirl. King George V did offer them asylum, then take back that offer in fear they would become a political liability to him. He never imagined their horrendous fate. King George was first cousin to them both; Nicholas on his mother's side and Alexandra on his father's side. That makes it even sadder. By 1919, after the world had seen how sinister things had gotten, King George's mother demanded he send a British warship to save her sister, the Dowager Empress, the Tsar's mother, who was trapped in the Crimea as the Communists were moving in. When the HMS Marlborough arrived on April 7, 1919, she refused to leave unless all the remaining family members were taken too. She even insisted 1000 ordinary cilivilians be taken from the town on seperate ships. They were all saved.

The Provisional Government did have every intention of sending the family abroad when they could, but they fell to the Communists before they had a chance. It's one of history's great tragedies.

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